Max and the Lemony Scent
by Angry Lobster
Summary: Max discovers a fragrant new ability while dealing with Alec and rescuing Logan from a hostage situation. Final chapter!
1. Chapter 1

The sad result of me sitting in front of a computer at 1 a.m. Hope you all like it, or are at least amused.

**Disclaimer: No, I don't own Dark Angel. Sigh.**

Max and the Lemony Scent

Max Guevara had accepted that she had an assortment of evil twins who'd each attempted to kill her. She had accepted that one of her best friends was technically also man's best friend. And yes, she'd even accepted that sneezing on her boyfriend would probably kill him.

But this…this was weird.

Naturally, the weirdness began with Alec.

Max had been relaxing in a bubble bath, exhausted from a long day of package deliveries, when there was a loud knock at the front door of her apartment.

"Max? You home?" came the shout from Alec, who had burst into the apartment without waiting for anyone to answer the door. "I've got a message from Logan."

"You know, there's not much point in knocking if you're just going to bust in anyway," Max shouted at him as she grabbed a bathrobe and headed out to the living room.

"There's not much point in having a door if you're not going to lock it," Alec replied smugly as he plopped down on the Max's couch.

"Hasn't Logan ever heard of a telephone? Or have you just started a telegram service?"

"No, though not a bad idea," Alec said. "Actually, Logan's in a bit of a pickle at the moment. That's why I came to get you—

Alec stopped talking. Suddenly he looked very dizzy and glassy, like he'd just spent an hour sniffing Sharpies.

"Max, you smell like lemon Pledge," Alec mumbled droopily, his head beginning to roll to one side. He looked like he was going to pass out.

"Alec, what is _wrong_ with you? I thought you had a message from Logan," Max questioned him.

Alec teetered to one side and almost fell off the couch. "I did. I can't remember," he garbled as he sniffed at the air. "What is that smell? Lemons, definitely lemons. I've smelled that before."

Max stared at him in disbelief.

"You know, Max," Alec slurred on, "I could do more for you than Logan ever could. Because we," he gazed at her groggily, "understand each other. We're like two peas in a genetically enhanced pod. I'm just saying…"

Max gawked at him, trying to decide whether to slap him or get him immediate medical attention. What the hell was going on?

"Hey, Alec," Max said firmly, "don't go all psy-ops on me now."

Alec suddenly jerked to attention, and Max, remembering Ben, thought she had offended him with the psy-ops comment. But Alec just turned to her and replied groggily, "Psy-ops. Yes, that's where I smelled this before. Max, back off for a sec, will ya?"

Worried, Max stepped away from the other X-5. Alec shook his head and coughed a couple of times. Max was relieved to see him looking cognizant again.

"Alec!?"

"Hold on, give me a minute."

"What is wrong with you?"

"It's not me. It's you," Alec looked up at her before continuing. "At psy-ops, there were these transgenics who could release this really intoxicating, powerful scent. It's like lemon Pledge. It makes anyone within ten feet go totally AWOL, say things they'd rather keep to themselves." He stared at her guiltily.

"What are you saying?"

"Congratulations, Max. You have yourself a new talent. And it smells like lemons."

"You're pulling my leg. Alec, I don't smell anything," Max said defensively.

"Of course you don't. You can't smell your own stench. Trust me, Max, you're a lemonhead. And a strong one, too."

"What? No!" Max clutched her head in her hands in exasperation. "How did this happen!?"

Alec laughed. "It's all in the genes, grasshopper. Why are you so upset? You can power on the lemony scent whenever you want to get info from anyone. This is a good thing."

"Anything that brings me closer to Manticore is _not_ a good thing."

Max slouched down on the couch next to Alec, confused and upset. As if her life wasn't weird enough, now she smelled like a lemony cleaning product.

"How do I control it?" Max asked sadly.

"I dunno. Just keep your mind off lemons, I guess, and you won't smell like 'em. Shouldn't be a problem."

Max sighed. Another thing to think about. Or, in this case, not think about.

"Oh, come on, Max. Open your mind to the possibilities here. You can play with Normal's mind, you can screw with Logan—

"Logan!" Max screamed and jumped up as she suddenly remembered why Alex was in her apartment.

"Oh yeah, Logan."

"What's up with him? You said he was in trouble."

"Well, he is," Alec began. "He got caught up in the middle of a bank robbery. I think he's a hostage."

Max's eyes widened at she glared at the other X-5. "He's a hostage!? And you _just_ brought this to my attention."

"Hey, I came in here bringing this to your attention. You're the one who sidetracked me with your lemony scent. Flip on the television."

Max turned on the news and was horrified to see live footage of an ongoing bank robbery…cops, helicopters, ambulances—the whole deal.

"Logan's in there?"

"He always does manage to find trouble, doesn't he?" Alec said jokingly, but stopped smiling at the look that Max shot him. "Relax, Max. It's just a bunch of ordinaries. We can take 'em no problem."

The newscaster on the television screen continued speaking, "_As we desperately wait on the robbers' next move, authorities are beginning to suspect that the culprits behind this scheme are a group of ten or twelve transgenics. Things are looking grim for the hostages trapped inside…."_

Max grabbed her keys and began heading for the door. She had to rescue Logan.

"Wait, Max! Where are you going?" Alec questioned as he leapt to his feet.

"To get Logan! Where do you think I'm going?"

"No, don't. I'll go," Alec began hesitantly. "You stay here."  
"What are you talking about, Alec?"

"Max…ten or twelve transgenics…I don't want you to get hurt," Alec murmured, seeming embarrassed. "I'll go."

Max's first impulse was to scream at him. Like a few transgenic lugs were going to intimidate her? Who did he think he was? But she decided not to yell. She met his gaze and looked at him eyes, trying to decide if he was being serious. He looked sincere.

"Alec, that's…sweet. But I can handle myself."

"I'm not letting you leave here, Max."

He strode over to the front door of the apartment and stood in front of it, his stance just asking her to try to get past him.

"You gonna fight me, Alec?"

"If it comes down to that."

Max walked up to him and stood with her face six inches away from his, challenging him.

It was unclear who threw the first punch, but in a moment the two transgenics were exchanging lightning-fast blows in a match that reminded Max all too much of her lethal fight with Ben. Alec's shoe met with the back of Max's knee, and she found herself toppling to the floor and being pinned by the other X-5.

"Alec, knock it off!!"

"No, Max, there are transgenics involved. The cops are gonna blaze the whole place just to get rid of the freaks. If you go in there, you're not coming out."

Max strained against Alec's weight, but she was pinned. Even her super-human strength could not free her.

Then Max did something that she had never thought of doing in the face of opposition—she thought very hard of lemons.

In a few moments, Alec lay practically unconscious on the floor of Max's apartment, dazed into a lemony stupor. Max got up and brushed herself off. She cast a backwards glance at the disabled Alec as she walked out the apartment door, off to rescue Logan. She had some new things to think about.

**Don't forget to review!!**


	2. Chapter 2

**So it's been a while (okay like two months) since I've updated this. I'm really sorry to anyone who was eagerly awaiting the next chapter...I hope that you exist and I'm very sorry I've kept you waiting for so long. **

**At any rate, here's the next segment of this odd little fanfic. I don't know if anyone noticed, but I had Max leaving her apartment (and whipping out the kung fu against Alec)...in a bathrobe. Woops. **

**Not that I would put something like that past Max.**

_**Max and the Lemony Scent**_

Max was not in a good mood.

She'd just had a fistfight with one of her best friends and left him unconscious on the floor of her apartment. Her boyfriend was, yet again, a hostage in need of some serious rescuing. Worst of all, she couldn't stop thinking about lemons.

Striding determinedly down a crowded Seattle street, Max couldn't help but notice the effect of her citrusy train of thought. It seemed that everywhere she walked people were simply keeling over onto the pavement. Great. _That_ shouldn't attract any extra attention.

Max took a deep breath and tried to clear her head. Logan was in trouble. Logan needed her. Logan's head was a giant lemon.

"Damn it!!" Max shouted in frustration. It seemed that the more she didn't want to think about lemons, the more they crept into her thoughts.

Her conflict was quickly resolved once she reached the bank in which the hostage situation was occurring. The whirring sirens and blustering helicopters were enough to keep any sneaky fruits from her head. The thought of Logan in the middle of the whole thing pushed lemons out completely. She had a job to do.

Max slipped into the crowd and pushed her way up to the barrier that surrounded the scene. The entire area was completely guarded. It was clear that she would not be entering through the front doors.

So, as usual, she improvised. Max left the crowded scene and approached a neighboring building. The side of the building was tall and brick, and she scaled it with a few transgenic-powered bounds.

Once on the roof, all that was left was the simple task of roof-hopping to the bank and dropping in on robbery from the above. No sweat.

Max had thought that, when she barged in on the robbery, she would simply power on the lemon and watch the transgenics drop like flies. However, as she landed gracefully onto marble floor, she was immediately assailed. A very large group of very large transgenics, each costumed in black and carrying weapons, immediately surrounded her and began throwing punches.

Max caught a jab to the chin before lashing out and connecting her feet with somebody's chest. Someone's head pounded into her stomach, and Max felt her breath knocked out with a resounding wheeze. She staggered backward and let out a cry as her back connected with a stone wall. The last thing she saw was a burly transgenic coming at her with a bat, swinging straight for her head.

And then, black.

--

Pounding headache, throbbing muscles, something constricting her hands. These were the first sensations that came over Max as she began to regain consciousness. Waves of pain seemed to wash against her brain, making her temples throb. It felt as though someone had smacked her forehead with...well, a bat. She groaned and pulled against whatever tied her hands. Where _was_ she?

"Max, do _not_ move a muscle," whispered a strained and nervous voice from behind her.

"What...what the hell happened? Is that you, Logan?" Oh yeah, Logan. Hostage situation. It was starting to come back. "Are you alright?"

"I won't be if you move at all."

Max slowly turned her head to find that Logan was tied up and seated on the floor behind her. Inches behind her. One wrong move and he and Max would touch, and that would be the end.

"Woe."

"Yeah, I know," whispered Logan. "Do you think you can get yourself untied?"

Truthfully, Max wasn't sure that she could even get herself to sit up straight. The blow to the head had left her more than a little woozy, and black spots still clouded her vision. She yanked against the ropes, but to no avail. For now, she she staying put.

"No, I don't think so. I'm not really feeling so hot," Max murmured, frustrated that she had let herself get hit in the head with a bat. "Where are we anyway?"

"Closet. From what I've gathered so far, the transgenics have pulled this kind of stunt at least a dozen times, but they've always gotten out before the police got involved. They're a bit...flustered."

"They're not the only ones."

Logan sighed, and there was a silent pause.

"Where's Alec? He let you come here alone?"

Something clicked in Max's mind, and the memory of she and Alec's fight came flooding back. For all she knew, Alec was still passed out in her apartment.

And then she remembered the lemons.

_NO! _Max screamed inside her head, but she knew it was too late. She hoped her new talent wouldn't have a very powerful reaction on--

"Maaaaaaaax," came a drunken moan from behind her. She craned her neck to see Logan lolling forward.

She let out an exasperated sigh. She tried to focus her mind on not lemons, but was failing miserably.

"Logan, _please_ try to keep it together."

Logan let out an insane-sounding laugh. "You know, Max, I looooove you sooo much," Logan drawled.

Though he sounded like a drunken idiot, Max didn't quite mind where this was going. "Oh yeah?"

Logan let out a high cackle. "Yeah, Max. You know, I really, really, really, really do. And it's not even, like, a typical kind of love."

"Yes?"

"Yep, Max, loving you is a lot like loving," Logan paused and cocked his head for a moment, "V8."

_What the hell?!_

"_Vegetable juice!?"_ Max spat, almost shouting. "What do you mean by that?"

Logan looked as though he hadn't even heard her, glazed over as a doughnut. "It's real pretty and red and it's just soo _good_ for you. Yep, Max, I love you just as much as I love V8. So, you don't even have to be jealous."

Max stared at him incredulously. For a moment she was thankful that her hands were tied behind her back, because if they weren't she would have slapped him across the face, infected him with the virus, and let him die in a broom closet.

Lucky for Logan, Max was suddenly distracted by the sound of action outside the closet. Something was happening out there.

Max instantly hoped it was Alec.


	3. Chapter 3

**The last chapter here. Enjoy!**

_Max and the Lemony Scent_

Alec didn't like to make things complicated.

Simplicity--that was his MO. Why spend hours cooking up a creme brulee when a turkey sandwich was just as filling? Why take the time to eat vegetables when you can just drink a V8?

It was this very aspect of Alec's personality that made him a very unhappy camper at the moment. His transgenic friend had dropped in on a bank robbery and hadn't been heard from since. He ought to go save this friend, but he wasn't sure he could go near her for fear of being doused with her lemony scent, which had a history of putting him in a coma. Throw in a few hostages, and Alec was beginning to develop an eyebrow twitch.

Lucky for everyone involved in this sticky situation, Alec had a plan. And to carry it out and save the day, all he needed were two things--a gas mask and a bomb. He decided to start with the bomb.

It was a small, rather inconspicuous little device, a remnant of his Manticore days that he had been saving for the right hostage situation. The detonator lay snug in his pocket, the key to very large kaboom. Alec pushed his way through the crowd surrounding the bank and, once close enough, tossed the little bomb toward the building and watched it stick to the brick exterior. There. Step One, complete. Simple as Easy Mac.

Step Two was slightly more complicated, Alec regretted, and it would require some slick negotiating on his part. But hey, he could talk his way out of anything. It was one of his many talents.

--

Max had thought she could handle this one without backup and without a plan. After all, one of _her_ greatest talents was playing it by ear and coming out whole on the other side.

At the moment, however, she was far from whole. There was probably a dent in her forehead from the baseball bat that had played ball with her head. She was tied up in a broom closet, too disabled to break free of the ropes that bound her. And her boyfriend was closer to death than he knew if he didn't quit blabbering.

Max had been pondering her predicament when she heard action outside the closet. Suddenly, the closet door flew open and revealed a masked transgenic, one of the large group conducting the ill-fated bank robbery.

"Hey!" Max shouted as she felt herself being lifted from the ground by her bound hands. "Watch it buddy!"

"Watch it yourself," was the grunted reply, and Max found herself being towed out of the closet and dropped roughly onto the marble floor outside. Her head, which felt pretty much broken, throbbed and pulsed at the sudden impact. Logan plopped down beside her in a few moments, though Max could barely see him through her sudden tunnel vision.

"See," came an unknown voice from behind her. "Alive and well. No need to go blowing anything up."

"Good," came another voice, and Max's heart leapt with relief as she recognized it as Alec's. "Waste of a good bomb, don't you think?"

Alec chuckled, and there was a brief silence from the masked men. Max couldn't believe it--Alec had held the bank robbers hostage to get them to release their hostages. And with a bomb?! He would brag for a month.

"Now you're going to let us walk out of here bullet-free, get it? Or you'll be conducting your next robbery in pieces," Alec said.

Alec took a step toward Max and Logan, but was interrupted.

"Not so fast now," came an authoritative voice from one of the men. "See, you walk outta here, and we ain't got no more hostages. Then the cops come in here and blow us all to pieces."

Max considered his words, and, yeah, he was right. But wasn't that the point?

"So, you see, we have ourselves a little predicament here," the voice continued. "We keep the hostages, and you blow us up with your little bomb. We release the hostages, and those cops out there blow us up with their machine guns. Either way, we get blown up." There was an unpleasant silence as this sunk in with the bank robbers. "But you know what I think? I think you're bluffing. I think even if there is a bomb, you wouldn't blow up one of your little friends here, now that you know they're alive and dandy, huh?"

There was a murmur of agreement from the masked men. Max shifted uncomfortably on the hard marble.

Alec's voice sounded suddenly pleading when he spoke again. "Heh. Hey, um, you know what?" He cleared his throat. "Now would be a great time for a nice, tall glass of lemonade. You know, _lemon_ade?"

Max's attention had been occupied with the whole hostage bargaining thing since she had left the closet. Lemons and all lemon-related things had left her mind. Alec's mention of lemonade made her think about, well, lemonade. And then it started.

Suddenly there were large transgenics swooning and muttering all around, practically confessing their entire life stories. Max quickly understood Alec's strategy.

So for the second time in one day, Max focused very hard on lemons. And lemonade, lemon meringue pie, lemon ice, Lemonheads, and every other variation she could come up with. It wasn't long before every person in the room was flat on their backs.

Except for Alec, who approached Max with a gas mask secured to his face. Max had to admit, he was on his game today.

"You look like Darth Vader."

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but I'm not your father," came Alec's muffled reply.

"Good. Wouldn't want those genes."

Alec smiled beneath the mask, and it lit his whole face. "Because _yours_ have never gotten you into any trouble."

Max started to laugh, but stopped at the sudden pain in her forehead. Alec must have seen her pain, because suddenly he was on his knees next to her, one hand gently holding her chin as he examined her injury. He carefully stroked her forehead, and his fingers came back bloody.

"What the hell happened to you, Max? Get hit in the head with an iron?"

"Baseball bat, actually. Planning to leave me tied up here forever?"

"You read my mind," Alec replied, but he swiftly sliced the ropes and freed Max's hands. She struggled to get up, but fell back to the floor with dizziness. That wasn't happening anytime soon.

But Alec didn't hesitate to scoop Max up in his arms, carefully cradling her injured head. Max was only slightly agitated. After several months of strict non-touching, being held wasn't such a bad feeling. Not bad at all, actually.

And with that, Alec started heading for the stairway to the roof. Apparently he'd roof-hopped his way in as well.

Max stopped him mid-step. "What about Logan?" Max motioned toward the unconscious figure still tied up on the floor.

"Who, sleeping beauty over there?" Alec smiled smugly. "The cops are already on their way in. They'll take care of him. You, on the other hand, can't afford to get checked into a hospital."

Max thought about her last experience with the CDC, and nodded solemnly. He was right. Alec noted her agreement and, holding her closer to him, his legs took off from under him.

Cradled in Alec's arms as they made their escape, Max couldn't help noticing the sense of security that welled within her. She felt safe with him.

Then she realized that her new lemony power was both a curse and a blessing. A curse because it made her more abnormal, more a genetically engineered killing machine than a real person. A blessing because of this moment with Alec.

A blessing, because she had finally realized whose arms she wanted to hold her.

**It's been fun! Thanks to all of you encouraging reviewers! Let me know how you liked the ending :) **


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